Thursday, September 6, 2012

The North Carolina State Archives offers new Correspondence Portal

Online Correspondence is here! The State Archives of North Carolina is excited to announce a new web portal for correspondence. Online Correspondence will allow persons residing outside of North Carolina to request a search for a record and pay the search and handling fee using the Online Correspondence portal. Persons residing outside of North Carolina will still have the option of sending a check, a money order or credit card information through the USPS but the Online Correspondence portal will give the additional option of paying electronically.

http://correspondence.archives.ncdcr.gov

But wait – there’s more!

The Online Correspondence portal will also have a feature that will allow residents and non-residents to pay their invoice electronically too! Researchers will receive an invoice with instructions on how to find and use the online payment option.

http://correspondence.archives.ncdcr.gov/invoice.asp

And that’s not all!

North Carolina residents will now find a new option on the North Carolina online request form. North Carolina residents can now opt-in to receive an electronic invoice. If the researcher selects the electronic invoice option they will receive the invoice via email instead of a paper copy sent by USPS. This service should save time for the customer and reduce operational costs for the Archives!

http://req.archives.ncdcr.gov/

We hope these new features will help us serve you faster and more efficiently. Try them out and give us your feedback!

I personally have not yet used the website to request materials but I am excited by this new feature to pay for our materials online. I think it will streamline the process and free up the Archives staff for other things, like, oh, say, fulfilling our requests!

If you are out of State you can check out the new Online Correspondence Portal. This website has records broken down into seventeen categories, including the following:

Civil War

Deed Books

Land Grants

World War I

Selective Service

Cemetery Records

Bible Records

Private Collections

Court Minutes

Death Certificate

Estate Records

Maps

Marriage Bonds

Marriage Licenses

Revolutionary War

War of 1812

Will Records

When you find the record type you want to order, you can fill in the form with your ancestor's name, county, and any other pertinent information you think will help the Archivist find the record. All search fees start at $20.00 for Out of State residents. All requests can then be added to your cart.

If you are a North Carolina State Resident, you can use the standard records request by email form posted here. The form does not specify what the charge is to North Carolina Residents. My guess is the charge is accrued for copies only. It is on my "To-Do" list to try this out sometime.

What about you? Have you ever requested materials from the North Carolina State Archives online? If so, please tell us about it in the comments below.

The quoted portion of this post was reprinted from the following source:

Several years ago I requested a copy of an 1877 will which identified children of 2 children who predeceased the decedent - and both these lines tend to be lost in genealogies published both online and offline (paper).

That same will shows different legatees, with different relationships to the decedent, than many published genealogies - the names listed in the court's index appears to be the source of these errors. (A grandchild is "extrapolated" to be a child, and a person from another estate is incorrectly tacked on to this list.)

Good point Betsy! I have often run into this same problem with the "copies" or "Transcripts" that have been filmed by FamilySearch and digitized on their website. There are often lots of mistakes. I know there are a lot of good researchers out there, but I wish that we could remember to look for another source if anything ever comes into question.

Nice new photo of you. I want to thank you for your kind words about my Mom. She passed away a few months now. I was so glad to of been there. All is well. Glad we had shared in doing her line together.

Hi DuSyl, thank you for the comment about my photo. I'm very sorry to hear about your mom, but so glad you were there with her. I'm sure she was grateful for that. Library Schooling is going well and I'm still learning lots. Hope you are doing well. Good to "see" you!

About Me

Contact Me: Ginger R. SmithI am an avid genealogist and librarian living in Durham, NC. I do extensive research at the North Carolina State Archives for my Brooks and Godwin families. If you would like assistance locating records at the Archives, please feel free to email me. This blog highlights my research and DNA testing updates. Please check out my Surname Page to see if we have any relatives in common!